One lazy Sunday, I went for a walk in Alameda, California and wandered into then locally-legendary (and now gone forever) Pauline's Antiques. Overflowing with seemingly millions of very vintage and recently retro things, it was a legit time capsule. It held really cool to what-even-is-this stuff, in a 7,000 sq. ft. retail space, including a truly sketchy basement. You genuinely never knew what you'd find in there.

The LettersMary to Cliff, summer 1939

While pawing through piles of stationery - both used and unmarked, I came upon two letters from a woman named Mary E. Stubbs, in Healdsburg, California, to a man named Clifford Holmes, in Sacramento. The letters were sent in the summer of 1939. Each envelope contained two pieces of paper covered front and back. She wrote both missives in two parts, each over a period of 2-3 days. The second letter went out just three days after the first and was sent "Special Delivery," which cost four times as much. Impressively, it was picked up at 3PM in Healdsburg and received at the post office in Sacramento by 11PM that night.

She writes about going to work, spending time with friends, feeling blue, the color photos her friends brought back from Europe, and that she intends to go there one day. "Just see if I don't!" she exclaims. Pointing out that she always tells him what she does with her evenings and he never tells her, she asks Clifford what special things he does with his time. She asks him for a picture of himself, and another poem (apparently he'd been published.) The first three parts are casual, a little flirty and convey a lot of non-urgent information, but the fourth piece is simply:

"Cliff, I haven't time to write more. I have to see you. If you possibly can, please come over this weekend. If you can't come this weekend, I may never see you again. Really! I'm staying at Hood's at 507 Tucker, so come there. Please come it's so urgent! Loads of love, Mary."

The ResearchWho was Mary Ellen Stubbs?

I became fascinated and started doing research. I found a picture of her through the Healdsburg Museum. There's a photo of the Healdsburg High School class of '36, which includes one Mary E. Stubbs. I think she looks anxious and susceptible to theatrics.

I wonder, did Clifford come over? Did she ever go to Europe like she insisted she would? Another intrigue is that she describes a date she went on and how she thought she might run into Clifford at the show but was disappointed that she did not. It sounds like Healdsburg was really thee place to be in the 30s. She says she went on a group date with other couples, but clearly she has an intense interest in Clifford. Were they clandestine? Were they in cahoots? Was she a very avant garde and free woman? What happened?!

Healdsburg and Sacramento aren't that close together. Google Maps says it's a two-hour drive even today. In the late 30s, when there weren't nearly as many cars nor highways, how did these two meet? What was their relationship and what became of it? I found no evidence that they ended up together.

A couple weeks later I learned that, after 60 years, Pauline's Antiques was closing. It occurred to me that I had precious little time left to possibly find more effects of Mary Ellen's or Clifford's. I spent many dusty hours over several days looking through thousands of random items in the disarray that would most likely end up in trash bins. 

It's hard to adequately convey how ecstatic I was when I found one more thing, this card (front & back). I couldn't have been more excited if I'd found the Jewel of the Nile.

I spent a Saturday and drove north to Healdsburg to see what I could find. I went to the library there and met the fine people who spend their time cataloguing the history of area residents long past. They pointed me to a great resource, the California Digital Newspaper Collection from the Center for Bibliographical Studies.

Through this great resource, I learned a lot about Mary Ellen, her family, and her many friends. I even went to 507 Tucker, "Hood's," but it's a parking lot now. I cross referenced the address and last name, and easily found a young woman named Hazel Hood, who was in Mary Ellen's class. Both were regularly mentioned in the local newspapers in stories which frequently covered such important news as who was going on trips in cars, hosting dinners, attending church, and receiving visitors.

The ArchiveThe whole town, in newsprint

From the Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar, 24 June 1940.

There were several articles about the activities of the Stubbs family. The biggest news, though, concerned Mary Ellen's sister Marjorie:

The relentless local newspaper coverage of the Stubbs family tapered off over the years. Pastor Stubbs died in 1967. Mary Ellen went to college in Fresno. What I learned, mainly, is that it's not a new thing to report to the whole world what you had for dinner, what concert you went to, who came to visit. It's just that now we report on our own lives in this way rather than the local news picking up on our church socials and hospital stays.

I was also reminded that women used to be merely a subsidiary of their husbands when they got married. This was the entirety of a brief piece in the society column about two women and their activities, yet both mother and daughter are only referred to by their association to their husbands, and the daughter is mentioned after the son-in-law in both instances. I never found Mary's mother's first name.

The TrailNo big reveal

Eventually, I became bored with the investigation. I couldn't keep the stories straight, and I wasn't really sure what I was even looking for.

Just before she cleared out the last of her vast stores of antiquities and assorted junk, I asked Pauline if she recognized the names. She didn't know Mary Ellen, but she did know Clifford. He was a friend of her brother's. Although I found no evidence that they ended up together, the two letters must have had some value to Clifford since he kept both of them among his personal effects for nearly eight decades. In addition to being a poet and a musician, he became a prolific and recognized painter. Pauline had a LOT of his paintings and I almost bought one but... well, I didn't like them that much.

There is no big reveal, no denouement — but it was surprising to discover how much of the lives of total strangers I was able to piece together.